ADA Website Compliance Checklist 2019

Parallel Interactive knows how challenging it is to stay current on the latest website regulations, and recent Americans Disabilities Act (ADA) lawsuits have made this a high priority. Nearly 1 in 5 Americans have a disability, meaning there’s a 20 percent chance of someone filing a case against your business if your site isn’t ADA accessible. High profile cases such as Beyonce.com’s class action lawsuit and a 177 percent increase in ADA lawsuits in 2018 make an ADA website compliance checklist critical to successful businesses in 2019.

As the ADA continues to move into the digital space, Parallel Interactive has created our own ADA website compliance checklist complete with tips and tricks to keep your website accessible for everyone.**

Alternative Text

Alternative (Alt) text is a simple way to make sure your site remains ADA compliant. Adding alt text to non-text page elements, such as images, allows audio page readers to easily identify these elements. It is also important for SEO purposes as it gives you another area to optimize your pages with keywords. Parallel Interactive incorporates alt text into all of the images we use across our company and client sites, using the long-tail keyword and other identifying features where necessary.

Turning Off Audio

When using embedded video players, enable the option to turn the audio off from the player so your customers don’t have to mute their machines. This is important for two reasons: page readers use their own audio to communicate with your visually impaired customers and other customers may need the audio off in order to concentrate on your text. If a video interferes with someone’s ability to understand the text on the page, that is enough means to launch an official ADA complaint. In your video player settings, confirm you are able to click on an audio toggle button before you publish your website pages.

No Seizure Causing Content

Flashing lights and other images often trigger photosensitive epilepsy and other seizure disorders. Without proper trigger warnings in place you can potentially harm your audience and create an opening for a lawsuit against your company. If you have any potential seizure inducing images or videos that flash more than 3 times per second, provide a clear warning before your audience comes into contact with that imagery.

Page Identification Text

Include text headings and descriptions across your content to communicate the topic to audio page readers. This makes topics easily identifiable for the visually impaired searching for specific content on your websites. Headers also help breakdown content for search engines and increase readability for your readers, making them a best practice no matter how you are trying to optimize your pages. We recommend including headers whenever there is a major topic change in your content and to have at least one detectable H1 header on your pages at all times.

Consistent Navigation

Make your website navigation predictable for easy operation among your disabled visitors. Having navigation that is easy to understand with predictable menu locations will make it easier for viewers to navigate using muscle-memory, whereas too many forms and variations in formatting could make navigation disorienting. Keep your menus simplified with a max. of 5-7 items with similar page layouts to make your site feel like it has a natural and predictable flow.

Instructions and Labels on Forms

Every form on your site should have clear instructions, but adding additional information you may think is obvious never hurts. For instance, make required fields stand out to the viewer so they are aware what is expected from them. If they make an error, have clear instructions to resolve the issue without causing undo stress. We recommend having an example form ready to show your viewers how a completed form should look.

Mouseless Navigation

Optimize your site so viewers without a mouse can navigate using the directional arrows, tab, shift, and enter keys on their keyboards. Make sure that you have clear destination points each time a person hits an arrow or tab key for better flow and readability.

Test Your Compliance

We understand no one is perfect and there are going to be compliance areas you may miss. To make sure your site is as compliant as possible, we recommend running your site through an ADA compliance scanner to point out the remaining areas you may have missed. Web Accessibility provides five site tests with the option to sign up for free to access unlimited tests. Each test provides a breakdown of your site’s improvement areas with specific links to the exact problems that occur.

** Parallel Interactive’s ADA Compliance Checklist contains tips and recommendations based on our experience as a digital agency. We make no claims that this is an all encompassing checklist for ADA website compliance. Parallel recommends that all clients and companies with a website property consult their legal team to ensure they meet all current ADA requirements specific to their website.

Ready to make sure your new site meets the ADA website compliance checklist criteria? Parallel Interactive is a best-in-class website design agency, San Diego-based, representing regional and national brands. Contact us to setup a detailed ADA compliance audit today.

Parallel Interactive is a team of exceptional marketing, design, and technical professionals dedicated to helping our business partners succeed in the competitive marketplace. Parallel specializes in developing high impact, cost-effective marketing initiatives that deliver tangible, bottom line results.